FOCUS ON Gourmet Foods The natural gourmets
Jeremy Clark discusses the success of Gourmet Foods with its Swiss founders, Heinz Naef and Marcel Lagnaz, at their home base in sunny California
top restaurants, it's not the first place you think of as a producer of what we term ‘gourmet food’. So when Swiss colleagues Heinz Naef and Marcel Lagnaz found themselves in California in the 80s, having worked together through the hotels network in Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila after culinary training in Switzerland, they set about creating a business offering precisely this type of product. Gourmet Foods founder in 1986, Heinz,
C
says: “In the beginning, we always had high quality foods for sale. We started trading ready-made product and then began producing hors d’oeuvres and other value-added products to hotel, club and convention centre customers. Airlines followed pretty quickly and over time this developed into the substantial line we produce today.” Adds Marcel: “Our philosophy when I joined Heinz was always to produce items in the way they would be if our customers would make them at home. Some might say they are better! “In the early 90s, when we moved to our
larger production facility, the ready-to-eat part of our business really started to grow. That's when sauces, soups, and cooked meals and components became important parts of our business,” says Heinz. Today, however, Gourmet Foods holds the mantle for sustainable, additive-free and, more recently, GMO products, so how did that come about?
Pictured: The vineyards of California; fine produce from Gourmet Foods; company founders, Marcel Lagnaz (left) and Heinz Naef
ulinary America is altogether a strange place. Home to some of the world’s finest produce and
“In the late 80s we noticed products were deteriorating in quality with an increase in the use of colours, preservatives, conditioners, extenders and so on. We started to look at this very carefully in a bid to eliminate them. We did this by using the ingredient standard of Whole Foods
Market in what we allowed in our products."
That was the beginning of a trend that has since become almost a
standard in contemporary food supply for many providers.
It was not an easy path to tread and Marcel readily admits that there are still many challenges ahead with cost pressures. He continues: “Farm-to-Fork traceability is essential for us and our range of products. It is what the customers want in the cost-pressured but competitive travel catering business. Getting it into
more institutional operations is harder.”
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